NHL Betting – Penguins Could Be Darkhorse Contender To Win It All In 2011
It is amazing how quickly teams can be bumped out of the sports betting picture as potential Stanley Cup champions. After consecutive trips to the NHL finals including a Stanley Cup championship in 2009, the Pittsburgh Penguins took a step back in 2010 when they dropped three straight games to blow a three-games-to-one series lead against the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern conference semi-finals. Fast-forward one year later and the Penguins are without their two biggest superstars in team captain Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, yet they are still getting it done in their opening round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
That has a lot to do with the way that the depth players have performed in Pittsburgh, as well as the play of netminder Marc-Andre Fleury. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the postseason has been the play of Aaron Asham, who ranks among the NHL scoring leaders with three goals. Tyler Kennedy has been a force as well as Maxime Talbot, and the Penguins know that the further that they go in the playoffs the better they could become. That’s because Crosby is set to return any game now, and has looked very good in practice leading up to this year’s Kentucky derby betting. Pittsburgh has been careful with their franchise player so far, but if he can work his way back in the lineup it could be the missing piece that pushes them back into the Stanley Cup finals in 2011.
